


Stress Baking

by qwanderer



Series: Pardicer [1]
Category: Leverage
Genre: Ace!Parker, F/M, M/M, Multi, POV Eliot, Pining, The Gold Job
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-02
Updated: 2016-12-02
Packaged: 2018-09-03 17:54:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8724106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qwanderer/pseuds/qwanderer
Summary: He'd been fighting against this for so long, fighting the inner fight, the only one he felt like he always had to win.





	

**Author's Note:**

> First ever Leverage fic! Let me know if I've got the voices. 
> 
> This takes place during and after The Gold Job and references a lot from that episode and a few things from others.

Eliot wanted to be mad that Hardison had assigned him the call sign "Mr. Punchy." He really did. But there was a stupid little animation to go with it, too, and.... 

It wasn't that Hardison hadn't put thought into it. Maybe even the opposite. Because the others, they had clever, coordinating names, but Eliot's was just for him, like Hardison wanted him to know that he particularly valued Eliot and his contributions to the team. 

But. In the end, Eliot didn't want to read too much into it. He just wanted to play with the (okay, maybe not that dumb) interactive little animation and enjoy the fun parts of the job. 

* * *

Hardison valued the badass qualities of his teammates, maybe a little too much, because he seemed to feel like he needed to catch up. To be more badass himself. That wasn't Hardison, though. 

Hardison... he was, more than anything, extraordinarily compassionate. Eliot had seen how he was with Parker, helping her out whenever she needed it, being her rock when she was vulnerable, all the while never losing respect for how badass, dangerous, and fiercely independent she was the rest of the time. 

He always cared about their clients, always did whatever he needed to do to make things right for them again, no matter how far out of his element it threw him. 

Hardison was the best of them. Because he cared so damn much. 

Like now. He wasn't hiding, licking his wounds, because his plan hadn't worked the way he wanted. He was doing what needed to be done, to make things better. 

"How many restitution checks you writing?" 

There were three hundred of them, and Alec wasn't showing any sign of stopping for the night anytime soon. 

Damn, Eliot loved him. 

"I'm out, man." 

He couldn't do this. Because Parker? Parker needed Hardison. And Eliot, Eliot was a survivor. He knew that the most important part of his life to control was the part inside his own mind. He could control this. 

Eliot would survive this. He'd deal with it in his own way. 

But to do that, he needed to leave, because being around Hardison right now was too much. 

* * *

The next day, Eliot made himself breakfast, and then decided to stay in the kitchen for a little while longer, rather than venture out to face his issues. 

He did a lot of cooking but he generally only baked when he was stressed. Although usually when he was stressed he didn't have leisure for either. Come to think of it, he probably hadn't made apple pie since back in Home Ec. 

That was a long time ago, but he'd probably never forget that class. 

Then Hardison walked in, and Eliot reassessed whether one person could push aside the memories of so many other beautiful people to make room for himself in Eliot's head. 

He briefly considered wondering how Alec had gotten into his apartment, and then decided not to bother. 

"You makin' pie?" Hardison asked. 

"You guys've been filling up on donuts," he answered. "Figure you could use something else sweet instead." He neglected to mention how many of the donuts he'd actually eaten himself, despite the distinctive Parker-shaped bite marks. "What's up?" he asked instead. 

Hardison made a moue, scratched his chin, and Eliot somehow knew he wasn't going to get straight to the point. "I wanted to talk about your evaluation," he started. "You were the only one who didn't turn it in, you know that? 

Eliot shrugged, and went to wash his apples. "I'm not really a form-filling-out person." 

"Well, I'm here now. So how'd I do?" 

Eliot blew out a breath, trying to think of everything he wanted to say, and trying _not_ to think of everything he _didn't._ "You're great, man," he said at last, "but Nate's right, you do the best when you just do what you do. You don't have to be great at everyone else's job, too. You're good. You're a good grifter and a great hacker. You're the best. At some point, that's gotta be enough, right?" 

Hardison gave him a speculative look. "Well, maybe that's not everything I want." 

Eliot couldn't quite keep the bitterness out of his voice, then. "Maybe you can't get everything you want. Maybe other people need to come out on top sometimes." 

"Could you stop always being the one who volunteers to suffer?" 

Eliot wasn't sure when they'd stopped talking about Hardison and started talking about him. "Excuse me?" 

"I know, Eliot, okay?" Hardison said, looking him straight in the eye. "I know what it looks like when you're in pain. And I want to help. I think I can." 

This was terrible. Eliot shook his head. "You don't know what you're offering," he told Alec. 

"What I'm offering," Hardison told him, "is me." 

He just blinked for a moment, before finding words to react to that. "What, hey, where's this coming from? You and Parker are okay, right? I thought you were working." They _had_ to work. They were great for each other. He didn't want this if it hurt Parker. He loved her too much for that. 

There was the distinctive sound of one of Parker's climbing harnesses from upstairs, and her head appeared upside down from the staircase. "Yup, we're cool," she offered. 

Well, that answered the question of how Hardison had gotten in. It opened an abundance of other questions, though, and Eliot didn't even know where to _start_ with those. 

"Then I don't get it," he told Hardison, frowning. 

"You don't?" Hardison asked. "You really don't." 

Eliot focused on slicing apples. "No, I really don't." 

Hardison sighed, quiet but sharp. "Okay, fine, you need me to ask? Here's me asking: Eliot Spencer, would you please date me, and possibly also my girlfriend?" 

"Wait, what?" As he registered the words, he could feel a scowl grow heavy on his face. "I..." His glance flicked back and forth between the two. "I can't have heard that right, man, because... you know how I feel about cheating. It's not cool." He returned his eyes to his apples. 

Parker moved closer, having detatched herself from the banister once she reached the floor. She didn't look concerned about what her boyfriend was saying. She did look fascinated by the carabiner she'd just removed from her harness, which she was turning over in her hands and inspecting. 

Hardison wasn't doing anything with his hands except laying them on the counter, wasn't looking anywhere except at Eliot. 

This was him being good at what he did. Not what he did for the team, though. 

This was him being good at what he did for _Parker._

"Yeah, and?" he said. "That's not what I'm talking about here, Eliot. You heard the part where it's both of us, right? We're both asking." 

"He heard," Parker said, sounding almost bored as she removed her climbing gear. "He thinks he's gonna break us. Eliot? Hardison told me it was you that sent me George the Venus Flytrap. But I kind of already knew. Alec gets twitchy when I feed him." As she continued, she became more focused on inspecting her harness. "There are some things about me you just get better than he does. I figured out a while back that I'll still feel the same way about Hardison no matter how many people like that I find. I can like spending time with a lot of different people for a lot of different reasons and none of that is going to break us. Okay?" 

Even strokes of the knife cut thin, uniform slices of apple. Inside of him, things were less calm. 

He'd been fighting against this for so long, fighting the inner fight, the only one he felt like he always had to win. 

But it was never good to be stubborn to the point of ignoring any new intel. 

And to be fair, for a long time now he'd been ignoring the signs that these two were inviting him into their lives in a way that meant more than team, maybe even more than family. The signs that the social rules he'd learned over the years were, to them, merely tools to be used when advantageous and thrown away when not. 

Even, maybe, the ones about how if you're with someone, you don't stray. 

He'd learned a lot over the years by listening to the women he spent time with, learned to question a lot of things, but, oh so often, they'd stuck by that one. To the bitter end. 

But now Parker was telling him something new. And Parker... well... she didn't always get _people_ , but she knew what _she_ was about, and she knew it well. 

Still... was this really what she wanted? 

"I know you've gotten jealous over Hardison before," he reminded her. 

Parker frowned, tilting her head, thinking for a minute. "I didn't want to see anyone taking _my_ spot," she said. "But that was before we were... us. Now I know what my spot is better, and it isn't _your_ spot." 

_I know how much love he has,_ she might have been saying with her eyes. _And you should know it too._

Eliot considered that for a moment, then nodded slowly. "So this is for real?" he asked them both. "You mean all that?" 

Hardison was difficult to look away from, those earnest eyes holding his (seduction technique, his memory supplied from two or three jobs ago), his warm voice appealing. 

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, we do. There's room for one more in this thing we've got going on. We like what we've got, but we want you, too." 

It was too big to take in all at once, easier to focus on the smaller aspects, on the food in front of him, the precise cuts he used to remove the core of the next apple. 

They were patient as he worked. Well, Hardison was patient. Parker... Parker had apparently taken to examining his knife technique with singleminded intensity. 

Either way, they both accepted that he had to work through this one step at a time. 

He tried to find a place to start, stuttering a little as he did. "I didn't even know you were bi," he told Hardison. He frowned, not sure if that had come out wrong. "I mean, it's not like I advertise it either, it's not always the conversation you want to be having, so, can't exactly blame you there. I just. I didn't think about it. It didn't seem relevant, after Parker." 

They were offering so much of themselves and the least he could do was to offer up something of himself in return, even just a small bit. He wasn't ashamed, but... information like that... a lot of people would try to use it against you. 

Parker chewed on an apple he hadn't noticed she'd stolen as she spoke. "I don't see what the big idea is about orientation at _all_ ," she offered. "Why can't people just like whoever they like?" 

"That's because you're ace, baby," Hardison said with a fond look in her direction. "And a little... off-center from mainstream culture." 

Oh. 

_Oh._ Huh. 

Wait. 

"Wait, Parker, you're asexual? But I thought... you guys...." 

"We are," she said, then shrugged a little. "I mean. We aren't exactly how other people are with each other." Her nose scrunched. "But I like spending time with him. It makes me feel... things. Nice things." She got the most adorable, consternated, angry frown on her face as if nice feelings confounded her. 

Eliot kind of thought he knew exactly how she felt. 

Except she... had never _wanted_ Hardison, not quite the way that he did. 

And Hardison had never _had_ her, not in the way Eliot had assumed. 

And of course he shouldn't have assumed, but some things... 

Some things it was hard not to be an idiot about. 

He shook his head. "So this whole time I was getting it on with all those one-night stands to stop myself from thinking about how you guys were getting it on, you weren't even...?" 

"Nope," Parker said. "No getting on." She wore a crooked little smile. 

"Which is not to say there was no getting _off,_ " Hardison said, eyebrows dancing. "Parker... she gives a hell of a striptease." 

"I'm thinking of getting a pole, actually," Parker said thoughtfully. "That way I can have fun climbing things while you guys have fun watching." 

Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck too much new information. 

Eliot could usually adapt quickly, but... fuck. 

He put down his knife. His eyebrows... he didn't even know what they were doing, but they were doing it hard, at Parker. 

"You don't mind when he... or if I... you don't mind if people watch you? Like that?" 

"I don't know about people," Parker answered. "But you guys... yeah. It's good with Hardison. Because I trust him. And I trust you too." 

Oh. Okay. 

It was _something,_ earning Parker's trust. Getting to be one of the people who could get her to put aside all her careful precautions against getting hurt. 

And now she was trusting Eliot, not just as part of her team, but as part of her _relationship._ Part of the incredible thing that was her and Hardison, loving each other. 

He wasn't ready to say yes to them, but he also knew he didn't want to tell them no. 

He wasn't sure what was happening, how things would go if he said yes. The script he was used to reading from... it was no good, here. 

With someone like Parker... he'd found it was usually best to just ask. 

"So what are the ground rules as far as you're concerned, look, don't touch?" he asked. 

"If I had a problem with kissing and all that stuff," she motioned vaguely, "I wouldn't do it for jobs, but I don't think it means the same thing for me that it does for most people. And once it gets to the sweaty part, it kind of just starts to weird me out." 

Hardison smiled. "Now, see, me, I kinda like the sweaty part. And it has been a pret-ty long time since that's actually happened for me. Don't get me wrong, having Parker is totally worth never having that again, but hey, if there's a world in which I can have both.... well, I like that world." 

Wait. Was that why... all of this? 

Eliot found himself suddenly wondering exactly what Parker had meant by _It isn't your spot._

He took a breath, then asked, "So it would just be about that? Just sex?" 

He'd seen that work, and to some extent he was okay with whatever reasons people had for wanting to have sex with him - sex was nice, he'd had it just for that reason often enough - but with them, he was realizing, it would grate. It would wear away at the pieces of his soul that he'd managed to hang on to this long. 

Alec's eyes widened. "What? No! Eliot... no, okay? I know, all right? I know how you look at me. I wouldn't do that to you. I want to _date_ you. Both of you. Equally. If you're interested in that." 

This was not just seduction. 

Of course not. Eliot knew Hardison. Knew how he operated. He just... had a hard time believing in good things just falling in his lap. 

But the love that Hardison was so full of, the care that he gave Parker... it was there for him too, all of it. He could see it now, in that familiar face. 

And for all his protesting... he needed it. He really did. 

He turned to Parker. "And you...?" 

She very carefully looked him in the face and told him, "Listen, I can't tell you how it'll be, but... you help me take care of Hardison. You have my back. I... I fell in love with Hardison. It's never happened to me before. But if it happened with him, maybe it can happen again." 

"You don't have to," he said. "That's not even what I meant, I... I just wanna know you're okay with this. You don't have to do this for me. Either of you. I'm happy just... being friends with you both. Being on the team." 

"Trust me, it is not just for you," Hardison said. "I kinda love you, you know?" 

Eliot kinda did. 

"And team means we do things for each other, right?" Parker added. "Well I do the sexy stuff with Hardison cause that's what gives him a rush, and I love doing that for him even though it's not my thing. And he does the jumping off of tall things with me because that's what gives me a rush, even though it's not his thing. And we both care about you and want to make sure you have people to be there and do whatever it is that gives you that feeling. 'Cause that feeling's pretty great." 

"Okay," Eliot said, no longer able to restrain his smile. It was echoed back on the two faces in front of him. 

"So what _does_ make you feel like you're flying?" Parker asked then. 

"A lot of things," he answered, "but you could start with a kiss?" 

Somehow he thought it would feel a little more real, if it was her, first. 

It was sweet and soft and whispery, and Parker laced her fingers together around the back of his neck, and they stayed there, and, yeah, just having her there in his space, leaning against him and happy, meant it felt like his feet weren't touching the ground. 

"Ooh gimme some of that sugar," Hardison crowed. "Gimme some of... both of those sugars." 

Parker and Eliot shared a Look, one that was disbelieving, but also proprietary and fond. 

"Also there should be pie. Is there pie yet?" Hardison said. 

He conferred with Parker with his eyes, and they agreed that they should pounce on Hardison and smother him with kisses. 

Hardison's eyes widened as they advanced on him. Oh, he'd get what he deserved. 

God, Eliot loved these two goofballs. 

He pretty much always had. 


End file.
